To be clear, I think the argument the Supreme Deity has conflicting elements, and that salvation occurred due to our Savior, etc. etc. is eminently defensible. Methinks most Hollywood productions involve less emotional credibility. I think problem #1 can be handled by any decent Jesuit: he wouldn’t even have to be sober. Similarly, the mystical constituency should have no problem appreciating its subtlety, if you want to call it that.
Whether this story is an accurate depiction of reality is a separate matter.
Heresy. If Jesus was purely divine, that means he wasn’t a man - and that’s heresy. Sabellianist or Docetist heresy, for example. CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Docetae
I’m shocked - shocked!
More seriously, my understanding is that the Trinity was essentially a compromise between unacceptable extremes: they couldn’t permit Jesus to be wholly God or Man, so they came up with something that would have made any committee proud, or at least mollified.
DtC has pointed out elsewhere that Original Sin is an extra-biblical interpretation. Then again, so is the debate about the extent of Jesus’ divinity.
Empirically, the story is appealing – otherwise Christianity wouldn’t have 2000 years of staying power. Perhaps the conceptual dissonance plays a role.
Rhetorical question: which set of questions pose the greatest challenge? I’d say that it’s the first clause in post #84 by DtC, followed by the problem of evil, then perhaps reason #25 of my post #60, due to its quirkiness.
The question is why was any sacrifice necessary at all since he was only saving people from his own self and his own rules? Why not just change the rules? What did the crucifixion accomplish that he coouldn’t have accomplished without a crucifixion. There’s no logic in it asa means to an end. Omnipotent beings don’t need means to ends. They just will theends.
As for being a beacon – a beacon to to who, and for what reason? If the event was supposed to be a beacon, why was it such a weak one? Why not provide any proof for it to anyone who didn’t directly see it? If there was something he needed people to know, then why doesn’t he just go on TV and say it?
He gives them a nudge how? Cite that he gives people nudges?
The question is why should anyone believe he exists if he isn’t going to prove it? Where does he get the moral authority to expect any kind of particular behavior or beliefs if he won’t clearlt reveal that he exists or what he expects?
How is this an answer or a justification foranything?
What script? Is everyone in the world on script now?
This doesn’t really have much content as an answer to the question, does it?
Again, not really an answer to the question. Are moms in heaven completely content with their children being tortured foever?
Blame the victim, huh? No, the only one who has a choice about it is God. God has the power to stop the punishment anytime he wants. What purpose does it serve anyway?
What’s wrong with just living life as a good person without kissing God’s ass? Why does he need his ego gratified?
I don’t really know what this means. “Living one’s life accordingly?” According to what?
It’s not just translation problems. The contradictions and errors are present in the original languages and text sources.
Well one thing we can know is that it’s not in the Bible. We can also know that the idea of “inherited sin” is logically incompatible with a belief that people can be morally accountable.
Awareness of what?
So God doesn’t have free will?
Huh? What? How does the mere existence of a hyothesis make the null-hypothesis “impossible?”
So you’re saying if it can be proven that extraterrestrials exist, it will be proven that extraterrestrials exist? Yes, that’s true. So what? What does that have to do with gods? What evidence exists for God that does not exist for the FSG?
They get their chances after death? In that case, why bother setting up any churches or ministries at all on earth? Why talk yourself blue in the face trying to sell your far-fetched story on earth, when the people you’re selling to can just get save personally by Jesus after they die?
If you believe in God, then this is only the rule because God says so. Why is this God’s rule?
This is logical gibberish. How can we have “chosen” something that happened before we were born?
Diogeneses, I don’t think it even matters whether a person is Hindu, Christain, Muslim, Atheist … or isolated member of a tribe at the edge of the world. Everyone has a concept of correct, or incorrect behavior. I think we are evaluated based upon how we act on those concepts.
Doesn’t matter if we are in God’s baby crib, or prison. Hell. Hell on Earth. If we are not immortal, doesn’t matter. If we are immortal, I find I care to find out more. There is no justification for how we got here. We are here, and can’t do a thing to change it.
We are here, looking around trying to make sense of this mess. I like that name, Diogenes the Cynic. The older I get, the more cynical I get. I find the standard Christian spiel a bit short sighted, and intolerant to the point of insanity. They don’t hold the patent on that behavior though.
The idea of “inherited sin” is just one example of inane stupidity. How could anyone hold me accountable for a murder committed by my grandfather? Dumb. Really dumb. Blame Adam and Eve for my problems.
Are mothers in heaven content to see their children rot in Hell? As if being related to a human body genetically … matters?
Someone sitting on a cloud with a harp, looking down on the rest of creation? I don’t find that idea very entertaining. Some people do, I suppose. Some of my Aunts and Uncles.
God has the power to stop punishment any time He wants? I know people who believe that. Believe in God, and are so pissed they want nothing to do with cruel Him. Of course, they are stupid enough to stick their fingers in light sockets, and turn on the switch, only to blame the electric company for the jolt. They enjoy singing, Poor Me.
Humans treat ants like dirt. Ditto with their inanimate creations.
Hey no problem: after all, we’re talking about insects and machines, right?
The Lord, in all his superiority and glory, may have found it difficult to empathize with humanity before manifesting himself as the Son. For Him to optimally build His Kingdom, he must sort between the quick and the dead: to sort with appropriate compassion, he must have direct contact with the travails -and most importantly the suffering- of his biped creatures.
Admittedly, the preceding assumes a less-than-omnipotent creator. But the impossibility of a 3-omni God is generally accepted among Christian apologists.
Of course, this side-steps the emotional core of the story. To wit: Jesus suffered and felt abandonment, so maybe he’ll cut you, his worshiper and child, a little slack.
IIRC, Miller noted (in 2004) that this sort of framework was offered up by Anne Rice. But Ms. Rice maintains that she got it from her Catholic upbringing and I believe her: the above is embedded in the underlying story.
God is variously described as omnipotent and also totally incapable of affecting the surface of the Earth, as needed.
Though he had the wisdom and power to come up with quantum particles, he cannot place the writings of his rules in 100 foot tall titanium pages right in front of a hundred cameras. He has to use a burning bush to tell one guy to go up a mountain all by himself and come back down with those rules, which also archaelogically appear to have been merged with and compiled from various legal sources that had no historical relation to Jewish religion…
Surely you can see that there’s no contradiction between me saying, “There were long periods without miraculous intervention in the Bible”, and you pointing out a few miraculous interventions in the Bible.
Well, actually he’s described as “All-mighty”, which is a little different, if I understand Revelation 19:6 properly.
The issue of the extent of the Lord’s powers is separate from his motives. Both are independent of the historical accuracy of Old Testament depictions, as well as the existence question.
Where is the evidence that the Lord tortures for fun? Critics of the Almighty generally speak of what God permits or they speak ill of His design process. Among humans, in contrast, whole industries are devoted to the intentional eradication of ant colonies. And roach motels are simply sadistic.
Philosophers note that there is a Problem of Good as well as a Problem of Evil. For example, a truly evil God could topple the economic growth process with some rather subtle interventions. Human society can be surprisingly fragile.
Not really. Assuming that God is real, and evil, all the good things you see could just be tools designed to give you false hope. And all the nice things you hear about God could be lies deliberately spread by him, so that when his followers are cast into hell along with everyone else, the fact that they were betrayed will make their suffering that much worse, and that much more entertaining.
IIRC, Isaac Asimov ( ? ) wrote a somewhat story like that, where God created a false image of himself as good, so that mortals would hate him more when they died and found it was a lie, and that they were all to be punished eternally. Except in that case, it was that God was suicidal, and wanted as many people as possible thinking about how to kill an omnipotent immortal.
An evil God is easier to justify than a good one, because explanations like “He’s just screwing with your head for fun” don’t contradict it.
I couldn’t disagree more. God could easily be evil without being Stupid Evil. While being good means avoiding evil acts, being evil just means you’re willing to do evil things if they serve your purposes.
God is described as anything the mind can imagine by men from all ages of time. But he placed His love in the human heart along with all necessary knowledge of how to use it. Some find it there and others are still looking.
We finally agree on something. And if everyone has a different description of god, and their statements contradict one another, that is okay too, since a creative imagination gets you bonus points, while logic, that’ll just get you in trouble.
That is, there’s no evidence that God tortures at all, while there is strong evidence that He permits suffering to continue. Big difference.
Ok, we’ve ruled out the possibility that G-d has a Stupid Evil alignment. (See Grumman’s helpful link.) If we’re going to get granular, which of the evil alignments do you hypothesize for G-d?
The evil god could also not be entirely preoccupied with us. A slightly apathetic or distracted god (which is compatible with an evil god, but not a good one, because they have responsibilities) could easily have just decided to make an unfair, unjust, dangerous world, and might only interact with it periodically, perhaps to make really bad things happen, while often just not giving a crap about the scraps of good that happen where he’s not actively spreading evil. When frying ants with a magnifying glass, you are not obligated to fry all of them.
Perhaps, but I’m leaning toward the physical aspect in the bible. Burning bush, witnesses to jesus’ miracles, Noah parting the red sea-- In today’s times, never happens. the closest we get is something out of Joseph Smith, or an NDE claimer saying “I met Jesus! He sent me back!” No witnesses, no charred leaves, even.
Some people do, I suppose. Some of my Aunts and Uncles.